KJV & ROOTS
1. We could either try to dumb down all of our books, or 2. we could simply ask people to be patient both with the Old authors and themselves and learn a few words of the English Language that have fallen out of use.
The KJV does not usually use "wrong" words. It usually includes words that have simply been "discontinued". Generations X and Y are Dying for Roots, to learn who they are, and the history of their faith. Seminaries and Churches have failed in this respect very much. Young people do not view Church history as boring, they view it as essential and critical. But when this is not presented to them, they usually wrongly conclude that Protestantism is at fault, and they leave...
The Moslems and the Buddhists know the history of their own faith, but evangelical christians know almost nothing about their roots. There are no Christian Heroes...because most Christian leaders are no longer familiar with Christian Heroes. They dont know the history of their faith.
How can they (Leaders) impart (give) what they have not learned ?
Some pastors answer back and say that they DO talk about Christian Heroes by mentioning the Characters in the Bible. We respond by saying 1) that this is good 2) that this should be done in anycase. However, teaching todays world about the Characters in the Bible is often not sufficient...because they have trouble learning How to make the connection on a practical basis to their own lives.
When they learn about flesh and blood Christian heroes (who are other Christians who truly existed) who struggled and had real-world battles, and titanic fights, and were able to see the strength of the Lord in those situations, then it helps people know that they have a chance that this can apply to them as well. We believe that BOTH Heroes in the Bible, and Christian Heroes from History should be tought and emphasized.
Josh McDowell in his book "Beyond Belief" says that evangelical
churches are facing an immense disaster about 5 years around the corner or less,
in that 93% of
Generation Y are NOT planning to return to church after they leave high
school or get out of the home.
This may not seem related, but it is. The Chinese - in the USA - have classes in chinese...to keep the students inculcated in their language, heritage and culture. Those who are Jewish also have classes to teach their children Hebrew for the same reasons.
Those classes by the way are mandatory and are for the schoolchildren. They attend these schools AFTER attending regular schools every day, just like other kids do.
Here at XOFC, we proclaim the virtue of historical Protestantism (which is what "evangelical" is supposed to be about ), but it is not lost on us that Most of the Eastern Orthodox private schools in the USA offer either Latin, or Ancient Classic/Koine Greek or both Latin & Greek. And we are talking about offering these classes on an everyday basis to children who are less than 12 years old.
So maybe you can see a bit why we are Not sympathetic to people (evangelicals) who are whining because they have to learn 300 new words ("new" to them) so they can understand their Bible.
We disagree with those who maintain that "evangelicalism" is about the perpetuation of stupidity. It seems that for evangelicals we know less and less about our own history and heritage, with every passing generation.
Who will stand up and stop this ? Who will be a leader to help reverse this ? It certainly can be done. We are helping to reverse this, and we help to teach this, and we help with books also. But actually we only make a small difference. It is up to you the readers to also decide to make that difference.
It cannot be done overnight, but something must be done differently because the ways and supposed "latest fad" of the evangelical marketing machines...are Not accomplishing the task of grounding the hearts and minds of those who are hearing the message.
Some leaders that we interact with simply write back and say "thanks for the nice thoughts", and it is clear that the task of "Properly Equipping" saints...is not something that they have any real desire to see accomplished.
We know...because we get the other side of the feedback, from all of those sheep who have left the fold. They did not leave Protestant Christianity because it could not be defended. They left because Protestants (evangelicals) simply would present No Defense.
And many of those evangelicals defected...and have become Eastern Orthodox. This movement (of evangelicals defecting to the Eastern Orthodox) is very big, and it is likely to grow. And then within the Eastern Orthodox church, those formerly evangelical young people receive the Greek and the Latin, and the Church history that they previously should have been given and taught ...in their Evangelical churches. Only the price of that knowledge is that they abandon Biblical theology.
So we understand your question about the language of the KJV to be at the center of the issues, since our answer is that you help your Church and the leaders understand that they may actually have to learn old words and what they mean.
IF user-friendly means that we have to dumb down our message, the long term effects are that we are eroding our own long-term base within the church. Churches that stay strong & long...are those which are built in-depth. We do not think that the real battle these days...is to attract new people (though this is nice if it happens). The battle we face is rather not loosing the current people, because when a regular church looses its membership (as 80% of them will), many of those people end up - eventually at ministries like ours.
And retaining the younger generations will be very hard to do, without getting into the roots and history of the Reformation and Protestant leaders.
We have hundreds and hundreds of books from the 1600s to the 1800s that we could bring back into print.
But who would read them ? Too many people would struggle with the words. (actually they would not struggle much, and they would figure it out after about an hour of serious attempt, but most people dont look past that first hour).
Instant Gratification Christianity...Jesus and spiritual depth "in 5 minutes or less". One can only wonder what all of this will mean when times get harder, and we think that those times are coming.
How Christian leaders think that their church can hold the line against multi-culturalism, feminism, "gender studies", literary deconstruction, and now just plain Paganism is a mystery to us, if evangelical leaders think that this is supposed to happen by osmosis.
Pastors could do a great deal to create the demand for better information about the history of Evangelicals and the Protestant faith, the history of the Canon of the Bible, the history of Bible translations, etc etc...
The concept that a preacher is "powerless" is simply a trick of the devil, a delusion to help them be and stay paralyzed.
We dont even mention (to most) the dozens of excellent books we have on archeology, on Jerusalem, on science, on philosophy, and on so many other things...that are too cost prohibitive to print for the few sales that they generate here. But the fact is that it is those books that provide the answers to the younger generations that are so in need of answers.
We hope that you will consider starting a church library (and equipping it with good books).
We hope that you will stay with this issue and keep thinking about it. The implications are so immense.
We do not truly need a "modern" King James. We need for people to read and understand the actual old King James version.
We are working on a KJV Dictionary. It should be out later this year. It will be small and basic. Then, once people are able to know the meanings of the words, maybe they will stop being intimidated by words they do not know.
It seems to us that we must work to raise the standard of education. If the rest of your pastors/assistant pastors knew Greek fluently, how much easier would it be, for you to find those men motivated...about the things of God ?
We are not implying that they are not now. But we do think that learning ancient Greek does take care of about 99% of the objections to the KJV (and the T.R) that is, presuming that people are actually using a Textus Receptus and not the corrupt Nestle-Aland.
It may sound as though we are evading your question about which editions of the KJV is the best. But why should we debate about which edition of the KJV is best, when this is almost always a question that Textual Critics (Bible Attackers) ask us, in order to get us to fight amongst ourselves ?
When we take it back to the KJV of 1611 and/or to the Greek T.R., we find that this settles 99% of the issues. Beyond this, if they ask us other questions, we usually ask them to do their own research on what the Geneva Bible says...and then come back and explain to us the differences between the KJV and the Geneva Bible.
We try to take every opportunity to challenge their premise(s), question their assertions, and give them every opportunity to actually learn that the TR and the KJV has a much greater historical tradition and historical accuracy, than the side of the Nestle-Aland/Modern Version does.
We invite your comments & feedback.
In Christ,
XOFC
@ 2003/2004 distributed content
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